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I’m bringing the banner back because the Anti-Woman Threat Level has been elevated to fuchsia.

I watched part of the RNC last night. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be doing that lest I risk putting myself into a coma, but I can’t help it. (Have you ever seen anything more boring than this convention? I’ve seen people party harder on the Lawrence Welk Show.) I couldn’t help it. I turned it on and was just caught in the headlights by seeing my city’s old mayor pretend to be a dumb hick in order to pander to the willfully ignorant provincialism of a room full of Tim McGraw fans who believe poor people are poor because they’re evil, dinosaur bones were planted by the devil to test their faith, and liberals’ real goals consist of sacrificing late-term fetuses to the Indigo Girls and turning all of our little boys into Eddie Izzard. He did so by jocularly implying that Obama’s an urban chauvinist/elitist for mentioning the fact that Sara Palin hasn’t run a city big enough to have bus service nor a state with more people in it than any city with more than one Hooters. (Rudy’s just so small town, so main street.) He then tisk-tisked Democrats for asking whether Palin can handle being a mom to so many kids while holding high office, acting fucking outraged that they would ask such a question of a woman when they wouldn’t ask it of a man. You know, because they’re such feminists over in the GOP.

I know the Democrats have been blowing it lately when it comes to women’s issues (hey, Obama, thanks for selling out half the population in a stupid attempt to court the seven or so religious zealots that were already going to vote for you out of spite because McCain refuses to acknowledge that the apocalypse is scheduled for next month), but watching Republicans talk about women’s rights nearly had me in convulsions. The dissimulations and misrepresentations I saw in fifteen minutes of watching the RNC were so obscene, so obvious, and so stupid that I squirted ginger ale out of my nose like five times. Hearing these ass clowns pretend to give a shit about women’s issues, pretend they’re the party of resisting the status quo, pretend they care about anything but giving rich people more money, starting some more wars with brown people with oil, taking rights away from women and people with the temerity to not be rich, and forcing people to adhere to their backward bullshit religious ideology is offensive to the max.

Or perhaps it’s illuminating.

It’s illuminating because I’ve seen the essence of Republican strategy in action: smart, sophisticated rich guys pretending to be dumb philistines in order to trick people who really are dumb philistines into thinking their best interests lie in voting in support of smart rich guys’ financial interests. It’s really kind of amazing if you think about it. I mean, these guys have to say insane shit in public that they absolutely know is stupid and wrong, and they have to act like they mean it. But they have to make sure not to go too far with their ridiculous rhetoric lest they tip the public off to the fact that they think their entire base has the IQ of Fred Durst. It’s a fine line, and I’m kind of impressed with how they’ve managed to stand astride it for so long.

So they get to come out and pretend, because they’ve nominated an anti-woman psycho who happens to have a vagina (maybe — I’m still not convinced she isn’t a cyborg created by Sean Hannity and Phyllis Schlafly or a transvestite MRA), that they’re the party of women’s rights and gender progress. They can claim that they’re the feminists and the Democrats are the misogynists (not that a lot of them aren’t), and do so with straight faces. McCain and whatever doctor of tomfoolery runs his campaign also think that they’re going to nab the mythological bloc of disaffected Clinton supporters who are disgruntled at Obama’s nomination, simply because they’ve nominated a woman (a woman who thinks being called a pit bull with lipstick is a compliment and that women ought to be forced to rent their uteri out as life support equipment free of charge). I don’t believe that a huge group of people that love Clinton more than their own human rights exists, but I do, unfortunately, think there are plenty of (Republican) women that are stupid enough to pick up what the GOP is laying down and decide Sara Palin is a step forward for womankind.

What can I say? The GOP might just have the public pegged. In any case, the Republicans have devised some pretty impressive framing if you ask me.

Maybe the leadership of the party of homophobes with wide stances and women who wish women weren’t allowed to vote gets something I don’t. Maybe I’m presenting arguments that are just too honest, complex, and thoughtful. Maybe what I need to do in order to hasten the gender revolution is repackage it as something other than what it really is in blisteringly stupid terms. I’ll give it a shot, I guess, and try it out on the voting public who are considering whether they ought to vote for John “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran… did I mention that I was a POW?” McCain and his kapo out of their “love” for womankind. The following will be my attempt at “framing,” GOP style, the debate over whether Palin’s election would be a step forward for women:

Here’s why I’m opposed to Sara Palin: she may be a woman, but she ain’t no feminist, and I doubt whether she’s even got America’s interests at heart. In fact, I doubt whether she’s even an American. Look where she’s from. I know Alaska’s a state, but it’s basically in Canada, and there’s nothing in Canada but socialists, hockey players, and people who don’t know how to pronounce the word “about.” That ain’t American no how. But it may be even worse than that. Alaska is just a hop, skip, and a few little islands away from Russia. I’m not sure this woman isn’t a foreign agent, and if she happens to turn out to be one, let’s hope she’s “just” a Canadian and not a Russki.

You may be wondering why I suspect Palin of working for a foreign government. I’ll tell you why: she’s already publicly admitted to being anti-American. I hate to quote myself (I, like Bill O’Reilly, am a paragon of modesty), but let us remember:

As of now, our Supreme Court (however tenuous the status of this decision may be) holds that a woman has the right to decide how she wants to utilize her uterus… The Supreme Court is an American institution and has been one for much longer than apple pie, NASCAR, or fake German beers, ergo, anyone who disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision is anti-American.

Palin has brazenly proclaimed that she’s anti-American, and has even admitted to sympathizing with terrorists who would attack us and take away our freedoms. She is vehemently opposed to American women’s freedom and right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and would, if elected, force us to use our organs to provide life support against our will.

And she’s radical about it (what’s scarier than a radical, folks?). She has stated publicly that she opposes our right to determine our own destiny even in the case of rape. You know what that means? That’s right. Sara Palin is pro-rape. She’d rather force you to give birth to the spawn of a rapist than allow you, after you’ve already had your human rights and personal sovereignty violated, to decide not to suffer further physical and emotional torment as a result of the crime. Palin claims she’s pro-family, but how can we trust someone’s claims to being pro-family when she has also publicly proclaimed that she’d even force her own daughter to carry a fetus that resulted from a rape? Palin is in favor of taking rights away from rape victims and giving more power to rapists to hurt us, and she’s ready to put the might of the state behind the rapists rather than innocent women, including her own daughters. That is downright treasonous — not to mention anti-family — if you ask me.

I think it’s clear what the right choice is here. Sara Palin is a pro-rape, anti-family, anti-American radical, and she might very well be a foreign agent. She’s clearly not qualified to lead on behalf of the majority of freedom-loving, anti-rape, patriotic Americans, and neither is the man who is so incompetent as to be fooled into choosing an anti-American foreigner as his running mate for our nation’s highest office.

Hey, they started it.

(I guess watching this bullshit wasn’t a total loss. I found out about Cowboy Troy, who the GOP hired to participate in the most embarrassing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I’ve ever seen, but who nonetheless might be the most awesome person alive. Plus, I learned some things about how to package the iss-yous for the troglodytes we call “average Americans.” George Lakoff would be proud.)